I’m speaking purely for myself here, but I feel that physiotherapy doesn’t really need any more quantitative research on hamstring stretching. I think we’ve seen enough evidence that pain is aversive, and that putting scores on complex conditions critically misrepresents the condition, the person’s lived experience, and the benefits of physiotherapy. Where I feel we could definitely do with more research - particularly these days, where we are increasingly looking for ideas about how physiotherapy might need to change in the future - is research about our past. Not just accounts of past events, although even some of this would be nice, but historical works that connect to messages … [Read more...] about New: Histories
New: Truths
One of the inescapable realities of modern life, or should that be post-modern life, is that we have all become skeptical of authority figures that want to tell us that they know the answers, and that we should follow them compliantly, passively and unquestioningly. There once was a time when people genuinely believed that the church, judges, the police, school teachers, parents, doctors and other authority figures genuinely knew best, but our trust in these authorities has been eroded by scandals, self interest and injurious practices. And while some of us yearn for a simpler time when the world was black and white, we can’t erase the image of child abuse by Catholic priests, medical … [Read more...] about New: Truths
New: Money
A lot of really interesting attempts to change the way health care is being delivered are foundering because people can't work out how to fund them. There are certain pockets of money available: seed grants and step-change funds that get projects started, but often these are term-limited and there is rarely any chance of ongoing funding. One of the unspoken principles underpinning a lot of new models of health care (including primary care, health promotion, inter professional practice, patient-centred care), is that they will cost less, (or at least they will shift the responsibility for payment onto the individual and away from the state.) But few people have yet worked out ways to … [Read more...] about New: Money